Washout at Dawlish

[The Stationmaster]

Sorry to sound sarcastic about this, but apparently the idea that trains will have to reverse at both Exeter and Plymouth seems to be a negative as far as the Okehampton/Tavistock route is concerned.

 

What is the problem? Cornish passengers will get confused?

 

And reversal is *so* difficult with HSTs, Sprinters and the Voyager class units.

 

And, as for the cost of Meldon viaduct - I can guarantee it will be far less expensive than some structures connected with HS2.

 

There is nothing in the rules to say that because a diversionary route is re-opened/rebuilt, the original one has to be abandoned. Again it is just whether the metropolitan elite wish to spend lots of money on the Celtic fringes of their empire.

The problem with reversals is a very simple one - they take time, albeit not much but still time and that time comes from - or rather goes into - two places, passenger journey time and even more importantly trainset cycle time (thereby reducing efficient utilisation which means you could need more trainsets which means your service will cost more to operate which means fares will rise) plus of course some interesting 'repeat' mileage, especially between St Budeaux and Plymouth.

 

You then face the simple reality of actually building what amounts to a brand new railway - obtaining the powers to do so, buying the land, dealing with local objections etc before you actually start work.  If you are going to jump through all those hoops you might just as well take the simpler and cheaper option of building a coast avoiding line through South Devon around the back of Dawlish and Teignmouth because although it will have to go through similar (probably far more difficult) hoops the actual cost of building it is going to be much less - even though it will include tunnels - because the distance is so much shorter.

 

And overall probably a far better option - with far fewer hoops to jump through and much less cost - is to build an outer seawall protection on the existing route because it is very unlikely to coast as much per mile as any sort of new railway and you avoid the long term cost of having to potentially maintain two routes (which is why the LSW route closed in the first place).

[Godders]

You can also say the same for Norfolk, East Riding, Northumberland, West Sussex, Kent. Being pedantic since there is nothing to the west of Cornwall no D2 could pass through the county.

Hi Bomag,

 

Are you really saying there is no dual carriageway or motorway in WEST Sussex, if so, I think you need to recheck. The M23 runs from the M25 J7 to J11 (Pease Pottage). Then continues as dual carriageway all the way to the outskirts of Brighton where it meets the East-West M27 that runs the whole width of West Sussex. There are many other sections of DC within West Sussex.

 

However, returning to the topic, I question the value of rebuilding the railway beyond Exeter. For many years the Cornish have made it clear that they want to be independent, well let's give them their wish. Rebuilding the washed away track at Dawlish is just pouring good money after bad for the amount of traffic that is carried it's not worth the cost. This also rules out the option of a different route.

 

Cheers Godders

[DJM Dave]

Hi Bomag,

 

Are you really saying there is no dual carriageway or motorway in WEST Sussex, if so, I think you need to recheck. The M23 runs from the M25 J7 to J11 (Pease Pottage). Then continues as dual carriageway all the way to the outskirts of Brighton where it meets the East-West M27 that runs the whole width of West Sussex. There are many other sections of DC within West Sussex.

 

However, returning to the topic, I question the value of rebuilding the railway beyond Exeter. For many years the Cornish have made it clear that they want to be independent, well let's give them their wish. Rebuilding the washed away track at Dawlish is just pouring good money after bad for the amount of traffic that is carried it's not worth the cost. This also rules out the option of a different route.

 

Cheers Godders

Wasn't the Gunnislake branch reconnected to Tavistock in 1986 in 13 days because of a similar problem at Dawlish? This would allow a relatively cheap and quick alternate to the West Country by rail, and link Tavistock etc to a passenger service.

why not do it again?

[Pete 75C]

However, returning to the topic, I question the value of rebuilding the railway beyond Exeter. For many years the Cornish have made it clear that they want to be independent, well let's give them their wish. Rebuilding the washed away track at Dawlish is just pouring good money after bad for the amount of traffic that is carried it's not worth the cost. This also rules out the option of a different route.

 

You are joking?

[jonathan452]

The big road bottlenecks into the West Country are on the A303. Honiton to the eastern end of the dreadful Ilminster bypass cannot be seriously regarded as any sort of trunk route and the dogs breakfast around Stonehenge badly needs sorting out.

 

John

https://maps.google.co.uk/?ll=50.889133,-3.080871&spn=0.000027,0.033023&t=m&z=16&layer=c&cbll=50.889088,-3.080734&panoid=JkhIPIVJKIVeIGOv793i2A&cbp=12,275.33,,0,0

[ThaneofFife]

This is one of the discussions on todays Jeremy Vine show on Radio 2 talking to Richard Madeley who owns a home in Cornwall and is a regular train traveller over the affected line.

[roundhouse]

Ah, but Plymouth is still in Devon and I haven't seen any campaigns for Devenish (or should that be Devonian) independence!!

[Gruffalo]

Devenish is / was a reasonable pint IIRC.

[Ron Ron Ron]

Wotz the damage guv ?

 

Here is another video, giving the best look yet at the extent of the damage along the Dawlish section of the main line.

Do have a look.

 

 

 

 

.

[Dunsignalling]

The problem with reversals is a very simple one - they take time, albeit not much but still time and that time comes from - or rather goes into - two places, passenger journey time and even more importantly trainset cycle time (thereby reducing efficient utilisation which means you could need more trainsets which means your service will cost more to operate which means fares will rise) plus of course some interesting 'repeat' mileage, especially between St Budeaux and Plymouth.

 

You then face the simple reality of actually building what amounts to a brand new railway - obtaining the powers to do so, buying the land, dealing with local objections etc before you actually start work.  If you are going to jump through all those hoops you might just as well take the simpler and cheaper option of building a coast avoiding line through South Devon around the back of Dawlish and Teignmouth because although it will have to go through similar (probably far more difficult) hoops the actual cost of building it is going to be much less - even though it will include tunnels - because the distance is so much shorter.

 

And overall probably a far better option - with far fewer hoops to jump through and much less cost - is to build an outer seawall protection on the existing route because it is very unlikely to coast as much per mile as any sort of new railway and you avoid the long term cost of having to potentially maintain two routes (which is why the LSW route closed in the first place).

Dwell times on long-distance trains at Exeter St Davids aren't exactly of suburban proportions now.

 

In any case, traincrew rostering could be configured to allow a replacement driver to be already in place to take over at t'other end upon arrival.

 

Land values in the South Devon area are much higher than across Dartmoor. Most of the old SR trackbed is used for nothing more than sheep grazing these days and it has to be cheaper to bring existing earthworks up to scratch than create a whole new route from scratch.

 

The arguments against maintaining two routes only hold good if a single route can be made sufficiently robust to avoid it being out of action for more than the odd day when conditions are really abnormal. I'm not convinced the coastal route can be fully "future-proofed" at any price

 

Mind you, I have long suspected that NR have two different costing modes; one for highly visible things that will be good for the company's "profile" (highly optimistic) and another for more mundane projects that would just make things work better on a day-to-day basis (usually knocked on the head due to extreme over-estimation).

 

John

Edited February 6, 2014 by Dunsignalling

[Godders]

The leader of Plymouth City Council mentioned that it will cost the local economy £170M per week.....that on its own makes £300M for a proper breakwater / sea defences seem rather cheap!

 

note to BBC - Plymouth is that large place somewhere near Cornwall

 

Hi Mickey,

 

These figures are usually pulled out of the air and bear no resemblance to reality but as a sop I would suggest that if the statement is true then the burgers of Plymouth could pay the £300M , after all its less than two weeks profit, which is an incredible return on investment.

 

Cheers Godders

[Kenton]

 

The leader of Plymouth City Council mentioned that it will cost the local economy £170M per week

I do question where these folk get their pie in the sky figures from. Are they simply all setting out their positions for some compensation handout from the government. The same sort of cry for unsubstantiated loss compensation is being heard from the Somerset constituencies.

 

Most businesses should have in place contingency plans especially for their "exports" to the rest of the UK (if they don't then that is their bad disaster recovery planning) That may well mean more road traffic and slower journeys but it is not unworkable for the relatively short period.

 

I also have little sympathy for the commuter up to London as this is part of what should have been considered during the decision to rely on such a long commute. All part of the upside/downside of living a long way from your place of work.

 

The only industry that is really suffering is tourism, and there are insurances and tax breaks that can be used to mitigate that loss.

 

If it is only going to take 6-8 weeks to have the line up and running again (I believe that is possible) then that is not really such a bad thing in the "end-of-the-world" scenario that seems to be painted by the media.

[JohnR]

The problem with reversals is a very simple one - they take time, albeit not much but still time and that time comes from - or rather goes into - two places, passenger journey time and even more importantly trainset cycle time (thereby reducing efficient utilisation which means you could need more trainsets which means your service will cost more to operate which means fares will rise) plus of course some interesting 'repeat' mileage, especially between St Budeaux and Plymouth.

 

You then face the simple reality of actually building what amounts to a brand new railway - obtaining the powers to do so, buying the land, dealing with local objections etc before you actually start work.  If you are going to jump through all those hoops you might just as well take the simpler and cheaper option of building a coast avoiding line through South Devon around the back of Dawlish and Teignmouth because although it will have to go through similar (probably far more difficult) hoops the actual cost of building it is going to be much less - even though it will include tunnels - because the distance is so much shorter.

 

And overall probably a far better option - with far fewer hoops to jump through and much less cost - is to build an outer seawall protection on the existing route because it is very unlikely to coast as much per mile as any sort of new railway and you avoid the long term cost of having to potentially maintain two routes (which is why the LSW route closed in the first place).

 

While you make some good points, surely the point of rebuilding the Okehampton route is for use as a diversion while bad weather/repairs etc close the Dawlish route - and not as a full time alternative?

[Captain Kernow]

With all due respect to everyone, I think it's still far too early for anything other than relatively uninformed debate. We're hardly 36 hours beyond the initial catastrophic event, and we're already on 8 pages - not bad!!

 

I think that we can debate the 'Southern' route until our cows come home blue in the face, but the realities are that the South Devon route will be the one that will remain. Where it could get interesting, is just how deeply the politicians are prepared to put their hands in their pockets for improving resilience. It is certainly possible (engineering-wise) to build a brand new wall to the sea-ward side of the existing one, not necessarily that much further out, but made of modern reinforced concrete, with a scientifically-calculated efficient wave-return profile and somewhat higher than the existing structure. Unless sea levels rise dramatically in the next 100 years (and where's the hard evidence for that?) - there's every chance that such a structure could withstand pretty much most weather, given that it would have been designed with such conditions in mind.

 

If money really were no object, then as Stationmaster suggests, an inland deviation, much of it in tunnels but still serving Dawlish and Teignmouth, could be built. But.... when reality kicks in again, I personally doubt that we'll see such a project.

 

I'm sorry that this isn't what those proponents of reopening the 'Southern' route want to hear. If BR couldn't make two routes pay back in the 1960s, I doubt that NR and the TOCs could do so now, without significant subsidy (which would come from where, exactly?).

 

The very valid points made earlier by Stationmaster regarding the time-consuming reversals at Exeter and Plymouth (the Plymouth end taking longer in particular, because Cornish passengers would have to travel the St Budeaux - Plymouth North Road section twice) is very important. Not just from the point of view of 'business journey time-cost', but also train diagrams, crew diagrams etc. You can't simply/glibly say - 'well, we'll have another driver and guard standing by at Point X to take over' - that's another cost in terms of running that service.

 

[Captain Kernow]

While you make some good points, surely the point of rebuilding the Okehampton route is for use as a diversion while bad weather/repairs etc close the Dawlish route - and not as a full time alternative?

John - the industry/country simply can't afford to have such a lengthy route, seeing relatively little use most of the year, just 'sitting on the shelf, just in case'... sorry!

[Dunsignalling]

I also have little sympathy for the commuter up to London as this is part of what should have been considered during the decision to rely on such a long commute. All part of the upside/downside of living a long way from your place of work.

 

The only industry that is really suffering is tourism, and there are insurances and tax breaks that can be used to mitigate that loss.

 

If it is only going to take 6-8 weeks to have the line up and running again (I believe that is possible) then that is not really such a bad thing in the "end-of-the-world" scenario that seems to be painted by the media.

I agree that long-distance commuting is a daft way to spend ones life but the British economy is so London-centric that it will be a fact of life for the forseeable future. The primary effect of HS2 will be to further extend the London commuting area towards Newcastle.

 

The problem with the 6-8 week estimate is that nobody is yet able to predict either when conditions will abate enough for work to commence or that it will be uninterrupted when it does. 

 

If contractors repeatedly have to remove heavy plant from site to avoid it being lost to the sea, those 6-8 weeks of work could easily be spread over as many months. 

 

John

[pointstaken]

Meanwhile, (perhaps slightly OT), can I put in a word of sympathy for the poor sods who will have to work in probably appalling conditions to sort out the mess. A chain gang of H&S staff ? What a delicious thought.

 

Dennis

Edited February 6, 2014 by pointstaken

[Pete 75C]

With all due respect to everyone, I think it's still far too early for anything other than relatively uninformed debate. We're hardly 36 hours beyond the initial catastrophic event, and we're already on 8 pages - not bad!!

 

I think 8 pages of uninformed discussion is to be expected. It's simply a measure of how important the route is to some people and not a little to do with familiarity. Even if you've never been to Dawlish, who hasn't seen at least a few railway photos taken along the sea wall? I remember a thread about a cheap and nasty little Mk1 coach on sale in newsagents for £3.99. That reached over 50 pages and it was all froth and nonsense. This isn't froth and nonsense and I think this thread will attract the crowds for some time to come. I don't have any opinions one way or another as to what should be done, but I do have a general interest.

Edited February 6, 2014 by Pete_S

[Vanders]

note to BBC - Plymouth is that large place somewhere near Cornwall

 

How's the tube strike effecting it?

Edited February 6, 2014 by Vanders

[Ian Hargrave]

You are joking?

If it is a joke,it is in the worst possible taste...and a gross insult to the many who are suffering homelessness and severe economic hardship as a result of this dreadful disaster.A 'little Englander' attitude,I'm afraid.....and no joking matter.Godspeed to a quick and safe restoration of the line. Devon and Cornwall are still part of the UK,are they not?

[surfsup]

The leader of Plymouth City Council mentioned that it will cost the local economy £170M per week.....that on its own makes £300M for a proper breakwater / sea defences seem rather cheap!

 

note to BBC - Plymouth is that large place somewhere near Cornwall

 

Plymouth? Where's that at? The front page this morning of a certain newspaper labels the line as Exeter in one direction and Penzance in the other! Er...

[SwissRailPassion]

From photos in the Daily Telegraph at least one house is undermined and may have to come down. The next storm is approaching, can the damage be contained? Very high wave heights are predicted for Saturday although the tide is lower. Let's hope the engineers can stop any further serious washouts in the short term.

 

A wave wall or extra wall seems a good long term idea but these do affect the beach and are difficult to model.

 

Thanks for your posts Captain Kernow. Btw are you singing in the Railway Eye Blog video ?

 

http://railwayeye.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Bloody%20weather

Edited February 6, 2014 by SwissRailPassion

[trisonic]

I hope the good Cap'n and his crew will be able to take the time and get it right for the future. Good luck!

 

Best, Pete.

[roundhouse]

Whilst I am not fan of long distance commuting and some of the downsides it brings to small villages by turning them into dormitory towns, it still does bring wealth and jobs when these people spend money on their properties and when they are spending there at weekends.

 

If people were to be put off from living down in the West then many locals might be happy but that will have an effect on the economy in such areas.

 

Also those that were using the trains to commute who decide not to anymore will affect the income to the TOC's and thus weaken the viability of Penzance to London trains, the sleeper service etc.

Whilst I don't ever see the old SR route replacing the coastal route, it still would be useful even as a single track line with passing places plus would bring back Okehampton and Tavistock to the rail network which as mentioned before has been mooted an umber of times.

 

Yes I am very fond of the old SR routes but do accept that the coastal one was the one to keep open back in the 1960's if one had to go.

 

Ian

Edited February 6, 2014 by roundhouse

[Godders]

How is this work to be funded?

 

I have just checked a few fares from Exeter and I couldn't believe my eyes.

 

Single off peak fares are quoted as £6.40 for a 42 minute ride to Paignton. £4.10/£8.80 for a 1 hour ride to Plymouth and £19.80 for 3 hour ride to Penzance.

 

These must be the cheapest fares on the whole network and there is no way that they could ever repay the costs of repairing Dawlish. I suggest we buy them a fleet of luxury limousines, it would be cheaper.

 

Godders